ER: Dear Diary,
I saw my upstairs neighbor today and he looks like a computer programmer, sort of intense and clueless at the same time. He smelled of pizza. He said Hi and I said, Oh -- Hi.
But what I wanted to say was:
What is it about Led Zeppelin that makes you need them for a ringtone and as for your drumming, I'd rather listen to woodpeckers.
FN DRUMMING, THEN LED ZEPPELIN RINGTONE, THEN PICKUP --
FN: Yeah. Hi. Right. Who? Oh. Uh huh. Really. Cool.
ER: I found this studio a week before I lost my job at the restaurant. So I'm trying to finish this novel I started in high school that Mrs. Beckwith said had a lot of potential about a young girl, broke and discovering the truth about youth and beauty in a time of economic crisis. But it's hard to do that with him up there.
ER: There is the drumming and then there is the toilet flushing. And sometimes both at the same time, which really raises questions in my mind.
(DRUMMING, FLUSH, DRUM)
Not Oh Kay. And then the footsteps. (SFX) It sounds like he's got ponies up there. And then YouTube. He's addicted to animal videos on YouTube. Singing Chihuahuas. (SFX) Cats who do backflips. (SFX) Singing coondogs (SFX).
And then the Brazilian stomping dance. He does it to a Wii program. (SFX) He combines it with rhythmic kung fu. (SFX)
He's got another Wii program called the Penguin Slide - you try to catch fish while balanced on a piece of ice (PENGUIN SOUNDS)
But he usually falls off the ice and onto the floor. And then he got a billiard table. A real one. I don't know how they got it up the stairs but they did. And it was right over my bed. (CREAKING) The floor sagged. I had to start sleeping in the bathtub. And every night I was awakened by the flushing and drumming. (SFX)
ER: In the end it wasn't the Wii or YouTube or the ringtone that pushed me over the edge. It was grammar.
He says things on the phone like, "So I go to the drugstore and they don't have the lotion so I go to the grocery store and they don't have it either" -- what's wrong with the past tense? He's a native speaker. From Oklahoma.
I got a shotgun. (SFX LOADING) I thought if he heard me loading it, he'd come to his senses.
So he's shooting pool late at night and listening to "While my Guitar gently Weeps' over and over, and I just kind of freaked out and I threw a shoe at the ceiling (SFX) and it wasn't that big a shoe but the whole upstairs apartment came crashing down.
(SFX SEQUENCE, SLOW CREAKING, THEN MAJOR CREAKING, THEN FLOORBOARDS TWISTING, AND THEN A CATASTROPHIC COLLAPSE) (SOME MORE ISOLATED CRASHES)
ER: Joseph?
FN: Yeah.
ER: You okay?
FN: Yeah. You?
ER: I'm fine.
FN: Good.
ER: Sorry about your apartment.
FN: That's okay.
ER: Where are you?
FN: In your kitchen.
ER: Oh. Okay.
FN: Oh -- you've got peanut butter.
ER: Yeah, help yourself.
FN: Cool.
ER: The bread is in the fridge.
FN: Cool. You want some?
ER: No, thanks.
FN: Okay. (MOUTH FULL) You busy tonight?
ER: I guess not.
FN: Want to hang out?
ER: Sure, why not?
(THEME)
ER: It's been much much quieter since Joseph moved in. No Wii, no YouTube, no drums. And I've been helping him with the past tense.
FN: So, like the floor falls and suddenly I'm, like, in your apartment.....
ER: The floor fell.
FN: Right. The floor fell and I --
ER: Was.
FN: I was in your apartment.
ER: Correct.
FN: Except actually I am in your apartment.
ER: True. And don't forget it.
FN: You want some pizza?